Thursday, April 20, 2017

Easter Sunday

Christ
being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion
over him.

We
usually associate the incarnation—the teaching that the eternal Son
of God through whom all things were created took to himself the
created nature of man—with Christmas or Annunciation, but I would
argue that this doctrine is no where more put to the test than in on
Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. What I mean is that the
ancient philosophers realized that God, the source of all goodness,
does not change and is not subject to suffering. Furthermore, the Old
Testament affirmed that God
is not a man that he should lie.
In the man Jesus, we see God joining himself to our broken nature and
undergoing suffering and pain in this flesh. The unchanging and
eternal Son of God takes our human nature and
experiences change and decay. This
is a real scandal in the ancient world for Christians to say that God
became man. How can the immutable become mutable?
For this reason, Paul says that the message of Christ is foolishness
to Greeks and a stumbling
block to Jews. The
message of Christ speaks of an Immutable God being touched by the
mutability of this world.

It
makes me
think about
why did God make a world that changes? One thing dies, and another is
born. There is the cycle of seasons and weather. With age, our bodies
are increasingly out of sync with our will; we
cannot do the things we would.
All material
things inevitably break and
eventually are thrown away or disposed of.
In the past 15 years, I've lived in five different states, and I've
noticed a saying that repeats itself from state to state, if you
don't like the weather, in whatever state you happen to live, just
wait awhile. Every state seems to think
it has the wildest swings
in weather, but the truth is that this is the way the world is from
the weather to our possessions to our bodies and the bodies of our
loved ones. I would also add that a good deal of the pain, sadness,
and frustration we feel in this life results
from the
changes that are
happening around or within us, and again
we come back to this question:
why would God put us in this world of change when he knows it will
only give us pain and grief? Now some who have a low-view of God's
love and concern for the world and humanity would see in these
changes a wheel of fortune, blind
chance doling
out pain and change and grief indiscriminately.
The philosophers would say that it is just a facet of created reality
that it changes, and there
is some comfort
but not a great deal of
it to know that change
should not surprise us because it is, if
you will, built into the
system.

As Christians we can say something more. As Christians we
recognize that God is a loving creator and father. That he does not,
in the words of Scripture, willingly
afflict the sons of men
and works all things
for good for those who love him.
The truth is
there is not always an easy explanation for why God allows these
changes to happen—why he allows this person to die prematurely, or
life to be a seemingly unbroken sequence of struggles to manage
finances, jobs,
or relationships. What we know by faith is that none of it is outside
of his loving providence. And here is something else for you to
consider this morning, perhaps God allows these changes to give us a
desire for him who is unchangeable? In this sense, you could think of us as children and life as a kind of education. The material thing needs to break or be
lost because we have to learn not to trust in the material things of
this world but in God who cannot break or be lost. The death of a
loved one may be God's way of increasing our appetite for heaven
where is no death or dying. Perhaps
we grow feeble in mind or body in order to loosen our grasp on the
things of this world, and to learn to cling to what is truly lasting?
As a pastor I witness people going through change and see first-hand
the pain and sorrow that go along with it, but I also see the grace
that out of change can bring a renewed sense of purpose and a hope
for heaven.

And
now we come to the heart of the matter: Christ's resurrection is a
tangible sign that God will raise up all that is good and preserve it
forever from change and decay. St. Paul writes in his letter to the
Romans, Christ being
raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over
him (Romans 6:9). We
will continue to live in this world of change and decay as the sons
and daughters of adam,
but we are also pilgrims, sons and daughters of the Father and
brethren to the risen Christ, making our way joyfully to that greater
life where there is no change or decay. We are people of hope, and
the resurrection is the gift God gave us in Christ to serve as the
foundation of that hope. Whatever pain or sorrow or frustration you
are enduring right now—and we all have our portion to bear—Christ's
resurrection is an answer to it, not
as an naïve optimism or an easy way out of our trials, but a promise
of new life through death and
change. Let us cling to
this hope on this joyful Easter day, as
an anchor to our souls, being
confident of the one in whom trust
that he
will preserve all that is
truly good and noble and
beautiful from
the decay, uncertainty and mortality
of this world. St. John
writes in his Revelation, I
heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of
God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his
people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more
pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the
throne said, Behold, I make all things new.